Simpler setup. Supported for things other than Hyper-V, such as Scale Out File Server. Supports multi-subnets for multi-site clusters. Backup uses a single coordinated or distributed VSS snapshot, and this removes the need for redirected I/O for backup.

DCB enables better performance for very different classes networking protocols to run on the same network infrastructure, such as iSCSI and LAN. DCB Requires supporting NICs and switches and boosts performance of converged fabrics. Required if converging RDMA.

Once a VM has booted it can balloon down to a new Minimum Memory setting if it is underutilising the memory allocated by the Startup setting. Smart Paging can assist starting the VM if there is insufficient host memory to provide the Startup Amount (before ballooning down to the Minimum). Minimum can be reduced and maximum can be increased while a VM is running.

The default quorum choice in Windows Server 2012 Failover Clusters. Enables a cluster to continue working smoothly in the event of multiple host failures. Probably useful with Power Optimisation turned on in VMM 2012.

Virtual machines are aware of Non-Uniform Memory Architecture and can schedule processes in accordance with memory placement at the physical layer. Guest NUMA can be customised on a per-VM basis according to host architecture.

This is a concept where a Cluster-in-a-Box solution is engineered to be a Hyper-V cluster-in-a-box by an OEM. It likely includes 3 or more NICs per server blade, JBOD (mirrored Storage Spaces), SAS expanders, and 2 Hyper-V hosts.

The free product that can be used when you don’t run Windows Server VMs on the host, such as VDI or Linux guests. Includes all of the scalability and features of the top-end Datacenter edition. It does not have the licensing benefits for Windows Server guests. Designed to be managed remotely via GUI or PowerShell.

Move a virtual machine from one host to another. This does not require Failover Clustering or shared storage Windows Server 2012. Move the VM, move the VM and storage, or move the storage. The algorithm was enhanced to allegedly make Live Migration 70% faster than before.

Live Migration Queuing

Live Migrations are queued up if more than the maximum simultaneous amount are started at once.

Physically relocate a VM by first copying it and synchronising I/O until the source and destination are identical. Can leverage Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) in a SAN to make the process up to 90% faster.

This will allow disk alignment for VHDXs created on 4k sector physical disks, thus improving performance. Almost no shipping OS currently supports this format of disk – WS2012 does. OEMs to start transitioning to this type of disk, via 512K emulated disks with 4K sectors under the hood.

Offloaded Data Transfer is a feature of a SAN. File transfers/copies between hosts on the SAN is done by the SAN rather than the normal network transfer. Will speed up the creation of fixed VHD files and Live Storage Migration on a supporting SAN.

Online Disk Repair

Windows 8 will detect storage faults and incrementally fix them with brief delays to I/O traffic that don’t interrupt it. Should replace the need for offline chkdsk.

Now uses SMB 3.0 and can leverage SMB 3.0 Multichannel and RDMA. It is used for metadata operations (very brief). Loss of storage connection also causes Redirected I/O but now at a much faster block level.

Remote Direct Memory Access / SMB Direct

RDMA enables massive throughput of data through the network without taxing the CPU. Found in iWarp, RoCE, and Infiniband. This powers greater throughput for SMB 3.0.

Using CSV and a witness as features, you can create an active/active file share failover cluster with transparent failover. This is supported for services that use large file with little metadata access, e.g. Hyper-V. In other words, you can use a file share cluster instead of a SAN for your Hyper-V cluster.

SR-IOV allows a physical NIC to appear to be a number of physical NICs, and allows virtual machine networking to bypass the virtual switch/management OS user mode. Virtual machines with SR-IOV can be live migrated and have guest NIC teaming.

Formerly known as SMB 2.2, it supports RDMA (SMB Direct) and SMB Multichannel (RSS or multiple NICs) and is in Windows Server 2012. Storage of VMs is supported on SMB 3.0. file shares if using Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts.

An aggregation of disks without any RAID. They can be as loosely coupled as a bunch of USB drives or a JBOD. The disks can be different sizes. A pool does not appear in Explorer. You can create Storage Spaces from Storage Pools. This is one of the storage types you could use to create a scalable and continuously available active/active file share cluster.

A thinly provisioned slice of storage from a storage pool. Can be a 2-copy-mirror (Like RAID 1 in concept and performance), 3-copy-mirror, or parity (like RAID 5 in concept and performance) storage space. Can be lots of spaces in a single pool. A space is divided up into slabs across disks in the pool depending on the fault tolerance chosen. Advanced configuration allows you to choose which pool disks to use.

Supported on VHDX and Passthrough disks, attached to Virtual SCSI or Virtual Fibre Channel, this allows de-allocated blocks to be returned to storage for thin provisioning. In other words: Trim. Happens around every 5 minutes, and will thin provision LUNs and VHDX files.

Fibre Channel HBAs in the host can be virtualised and FC SAN LUNs can be mounted directly by VMs, enabling guest clusters on FC SANs. Requires NPIV in the SAN. Can support guest MPIO/DSM with multiple virtual SANs in the host and multiple vHBAs in the VM. Probably requires OEM support for this solution. Support includes FCoE because it’s just Fibre Channel to the VM. The only limit on the number of guests using this feature is FC bandwidth utilisation.

A free Accelerator tool for converting VMware virtual machines into Hyper-V virtual machines. It is a free alternative to System Center 2012. It uninstalls the VMware tools, converts the disks AND the VM configuration, and installs the Hyper-V integration components. GUI and command prompt driven.

Like a virtual network, connects Virtual HBAs to physical HBAs. Recommended that there is one virtual SAN (in a host) and one virtual HBA (in each VM using the SAN) per physical HBA if you want to install OEM supported MPIO/DSM in the VM.

Windows Server 2012 domain controllers are aware if they are Windows 8 Hyper-V VMs. This prevents USN rollback (VM restore or snapshot application) and enables you to clone DCs by copying VMs, using a feature called VM-Generation ID (GenID).

VP:LP Ratio

The old 8:1 (server VMs) or 12:1 (VDI) limitations have been removed. Now you can place as many vCPUs as you want, keeping in mind the host (2048 vCPU) and VM (64 vCPU) limits, and the capabilities of the host hardware versus the VM workloads (assess your workloads before virtualisation).

Hyper-V is included in Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise for free. It’s the same Hyper-V as in the server, offering VM mobility and an easy introduction to Microsoft’s enterprise virtualisation. The client version of Hyper-V requires Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) in the CPU (Intel EPT, AMD RVI/NPT). This is not a requirement in the server version, but it is recommended.

Windows Server Backup

WSB in WS2012 supports backing up Hyper-V VMs on standalone hosts and on clusters with SAS, iSCSI, and FC storage. It does not support VSS backups of VMs on SMB file shares. Backup can be stored on USB or file shares.

Thanks Jim, nothing has been announced about “Hyper-V Server 8″ so I cannot comment. I guess we’ll hear around RC stage. To be honest, it has a very limited market if you license Windows VMs correctly (by licensing the host). Really it only has a place for VDI or Linux VM hosting.

Thanks Aidan. I guess most of my clients run SBS Server and the “Hyper-v Server” is a great way to get things like clustering etc into a small to medium business environment.
I guess I just can’t wait for the next version to come out and support things like virtual switches etc.

Being able to store VMs on a file share, live migration without clusters, Live Storage Migration, and Hyper-V replica should be features that give lots of new functionality for the SME/SBS space. Service providers could offer new services with Hyper-V Replica too.

Hi,
We are a financial brokerage firm and we are virtualizing our servers which include (SQL servers,application servers, file servers and DC). I need your suggestion on following
1. Shall i go ahead with Win2008r2 with software assurance or i will wait for the Windows 8 to be arrived.If i am not mistaken Windows 8 also called win2012 server will be replacing 2008r2.
2.I have FC storage and my requirement is to do failover clustering of sql servers but all my local vendors are saying not possible on FC ,needs ISCSI storage.
3.What is the best backup solution for Hyper V as per my scenario…

Great work Aidan – all I can say it ‘Bring it On’ I have been waiting for an enterprise strength answer to ESX for a looong time.
Watching MSFT and VMWare going toe to toe is going to be better than the WWF and Hulk Hogan body slamming a chair thrower!!

Archives

Archives

About this Blog

This blog serves 2 purposes. Firstly, I want to share information with other IT pros about the technologies we work with and how to solve problems we often face. I've worked with technologies from the desktop to the server, Active Directory, System Center, security and virtualisation.

Secondly, I use my blog as a notebook. There's so much to learn and remember in our jobs that it's impossible to keep up. By blogging, I have a notebook that I can access from anywhere. It has saved my proverbial many times in the past.

Waiver

Anything you do to your IT infrastructure, applications, services, computer or anything else is 100% down to your own responsibility and liability. Aidan Finn bears no responsibility or liability for anything you do. Please independently confirm anything you read on this blog before doing whatever you decide to do.